There here at last

Not good beginning....I want to post daily and I have not put anything on in 2 days. I guess I was trying to sort everything out before the athletes stormed in.

Yesterday was the first official day of opening. The Village is opened to all teams and Nations. Our Canadian athletes were looking forward to getting settled in and they were first at the Gate. The wheelchair basketball teams, men and women, were storming in at 7:15. Our Canadian Mission staff moved from the downtown hotel to come in the Village as well. We need everybody here to run operations to make the experience a fantastic one for all teams and athletes. This included the rest of my small medical core staff: Christina Grace (Chief Therapist), Dawn Haworth( Clinic Manager), Andy Marshall and Darrell Menard (physicians). All the rest of the therapy staff will be associated with teams as the therapists for the women's WC basketball team , etc.
We will be a total of about 20 health care personnel helping our athletes perform at their best.

What was impressive is the speed at which our Canadian accommodations became "Canadianized", the real word is "branding". Our team of press and communications were all over the place with signs and decor which made the hallways and common places feel like Canada. The place looks great and it's been less than 24 hours.

I finally got the gym yesterday with the women's WC basketball team for their practice. As I am also the team physician for that organization, I enjoyed reconnect with the athletes and staff as I hadn't seen them for a while as they were training in Winnipeg, Germany and recently at Brock University before arriving here yesterday.

So now we are operational. The clinic looks great, we scored a full second "apparent" across the hall which I converted in 3 treatment rooms by getting rid of all the "living" furniture (beds and all).

The real work, the fun stuff we are actually here to do, is start accompanying teams and being at the venues to cover events and assure everyone is fine. This week, during training time, it's a great time for me to visit every competition venue and scout out the athlete medical services available for us i case of emergencies. I also really enjoy seeing the athletes train and experience all the different sports. I will try and provide you with interesting experiences of these sports as the days roll by.

For now, gotta go.

Canadian Academy of Sport and Exercise Medicine members part of the Core Medical Team
Darrell, me, Dawn and Andy